


baptism

by mireailles



Category: Rusty Lake | Cube Escape (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mireailles/pseuds/mireailles
Summary: Rusty Lake Paradise. Endgame spoilers. Jakob and the Tenth Plague.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	baptism

He doesn’t really expect what happens after he comes out of the well.  
  
Somehow, he ends up on a boat overlooking the lake. As he wades through the water towards his home, something churns in his stomach. There’s an unsettling aura in the air. Dusk colours the sky red and makes the shadows seem longer, ominous. By the entrance, he spots David, holding up a torch. He has that same wicked smile he’s seen on him since he first landed on Rusty Lake.  
  
Jakob tries to move past him but David blocks the way, the torch tossing small embers against the sky.  
  
_‘I hope I’m not sacrificed.’_  
  
The words echo in Jakob’s mind and he stares at David now silent, like he’s expecting something to happen. Like, he’s expecting his brother to do something. He fishes in his pocket, the collections of masks at his fingertips. He doesn’t know why but the rabbit mask seems to be calling to him. He takes it out, comes close to his brother, slips the mask on his brother’s face. David does nothing, and Jakob makes sure the mask blocks out his sadistic smile, even though he’s never done anything sadistic in his life.  
  
Satisfied, David moves out of the way, letting Jakob slip through.  
  
“It’s time,” Elizabeth says when she hears him come up the pathway.  
  
Like David she doesn’t move. She doesn’t say anything, holding the torch in one hand. He swallows, goes through the different masks he has left. The pheasant mask, he manages to get a grip on. He walks over and puts the mask over her head. She breathes in heavily and then she parts. He doesn’t notice that she disappears soon after Jakob places the mask on her.  
  
His grandmother waits for him near the forking paths.  
  
Beside her is the pedestal he’s seen every once in a while on his stay. She walks up to him, slowly and blocks the way. She says nothing and her eyes, old and aging, a tiredness. She’s dressed in white from head to toe, reminding him of the times when there were special ceremonies--or funerals. He fishes out the mask of the pigeon, slips it on her, noting the dead stare in the eyes of the mask and she parts to make room for him. Waves her torch like a madwoman to the path ahead. The light starts to fade as he gets further and further away from her.  
  
He meets his uncle near the house and just beside the path to where the tower once stood.  
  
“It’s time,” he says ominously.  
  
His voice, gravelly whether from age or the tainted burger Jakob served him a few days ago. Black bags under his eyes. His uncle Gerard’s always been on the large side and he blocks the way, towering over his nephew. Jakob has to take a step back, rummages around and finds the boar mask. He puts it on his uncle, snug. His uncle makes a snorting noise and moves out of the way, watching his nephew leave.  
  
His father stops him just a few steps from his uncle.  
  
Like his grandmother, he’s dressed in robes of white, like a priest almost. He says nothing, one hand holding up a torch and the other, pressed to his abdomen. He’s still pale as death from the lice infestation, having most of his blood drained. He doesn’t say anything but looks at his son expectantly.  
  
_‘Last one,’ Jakob thinks._  
  
He takes the last mask, deer and puts it on his father’s head. His father parts to the left, even with the mask, Jakob feels his father’s eyes on him. He walks towards the tower, finds there’s nothing there except that strange wooden structure that was floating on the lake. It’s replaced the tower, he grabs the cube from his pocket. Places it in the gold structure.  
  
Outside, as the gold structure starts to glow, he sees the procession. His family, all in their masks, wade into the water until they’re all facing him. He feels like he’s in some kind of cage, as the wooden pillars of the owl structure traps him inside while his family looks on from the outside.  
  
David is the first to toss his torch and he can only look on as his uncle tosses his. The structure, made completely out of dry wood and it crumbles under the flames. He wants to cry out but somehow, he knew this would happen, the strange shadows, the plagues that almost destroyed the lake. They needed a sacrifice after Caroline’s death. They needed someone to ease her soul after all the other sacrifices and loss. Jakob, the one that escaped Rusty Lake would be the fodder they needed. The one no one really kept in contact with after so many years, the one they’d lure back in with the tragic news of his mother’s death.  
  
He watches them now, with their masks, completely expressionless as they burn him alive. The structure creaks under the heat and ash. He watches his own sister, blind as a bat, toss her torch in and it clatters on the ground, fire spreading everywhere it managed to bounce off. His grandmother tosses hers high up, into the rafters and brings down a large pillar of wood that almost pins him down. He covers his face from the fire, now burning out of control, sputters. The structure’s trapped him in.  
  
His father takes a step forward, in his deer mask. His torch lands on Jakob’s arm and the fire engulfs him as his family looks on taking a few steps back because of the smoke. He can barely register them anymore, the smoke blinds his vision.The light from the cube and structure cutting through the red and orange of the fire. Visions of his childhood flash before his eyes and the strange shadowman eclipses all of it.  
  
_‘Our time has come, Paradise will rise again,’ he finds himself saying._


End file.
